hudson williams vs 'queerbaiting': why is everyone so parasocial?
i think i've found the latest pebble in my shoe.
there's been a lot of discourse about hudson williams and the concept of queerbaiting. and, as a bisexual woman, i have my opinions.
here's my hot take: queerbaiting is slowly turning into euphemistic language to disguise biphobia. walk with me here.
any time a celebrity actively engage with LGBT art, literature, film, concepts, etc, there's bound to be speculation around that celebrity's own sexuality.
the problem arises when audiences get a little too involved.
hudson williams, as we all know, stars in a LGBT hockey romance TV show. and this goes without saying, he plays a gay character. and of course he does a fantastic job. he really puts in the work to understand his character well.
and outside of the show, he's very comfortable in his sexuality. he's often the muse of more provocative magazine photography, and his personality in interviews is very sexually open. he engages in media work that the likes of tom cruise and brad pitt—very hyper-masc action movie stars—would never.
but, he dares commit the sin of having a girlfriend.
so, because of that, any and all of his queerness is now null and void. it's malicious, it surely must all be an act to bait his audience.
don't take this as me denying the existence of queerbaiting, because it's absolutely a real thing.
but queerbaiting is best described as a controversial marketing tactic. companies can queerbait, film marketers/makers can queerbait.
but to say that a celebrity's personality outside of their work is queerbaiting has an underlying meaning. an undertone.
because when we accuse a celebrity of queerbaiting simply for existing outside of a heterosexual norm, there becomes this implicit demand for public labeling. pressure to out one's sexuality when fans are not owed that.
why are we succumbing to the boxes that straight people want to keep lgbtq+ people in?
celebrities do not owe you a label. they do not owe you a lens into their private life.
it's no longer simple criticism towards companies and filmmakers, now it's another form of witch hunting. it happened in 1692 (salem witch trials). it happened in 1950 (mccarthyism). this is just a niche form of witch hunting.
leave hudson williams alone. he does not owe anybody a label. he doesn't need to be put in a box to make audiences more comfortable. let him be comfortable in his sexuality without accusing him of queerbaiting.
yes he has a girlfriend. that does not make any potential queerness of his any less valid. there's a b in lgbtq+ you know. it stands for bisexual. not every queer person is exclusively attracted to their same sex please get that narrative out of your head.
also, stop trying to point to his relationship with connor to accuse him of queerbaiting or speculate on his sexuality. believe it or not men are allowed to be physically affectionate with each other. men are capable of platonic intimacy without needing to be gay. you're just used to homophobic male socialization.
queerness is a spectrum, not a grid. not everyone is going to fit into an average archetype.
moral of the story: leave hudson alone. stop trying to force a label onto him. he is a stranger. he owes you nothing.
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